“I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”
― Samwise Gamgee
Thirty six years ago I wandered into sixth form English Lit class and there was only one seat left at the back, next to a scuffy moustachioed geezer with a tasselled leather jacket on.
Within five minutes we were weeping with laughter together. Our brotherhood was sealed within a day. Its a rare thing to find a friend who demands nothing of you but gives everything. A person with whom you can be completely authentic.
Andy, for he was that moustachioed oik, is such a person. He has a childlike ability to consider anything pleasant to be an adventure, whether that is an unexpected pint of Bathams, with a glorious salad cob, or a days snorkelling from a catamaran off a private island in the caribbean. He has a truly infectious gratitude.
We enjoyed so many adventures in the last 36 years: some great, some small, all wonderful. Becoming husbands, becoming fathers, competing at sports. In sickness and in health. Our visits to Amsterdam, and Florida are burned upon my spirit.
It was wonderful sharing one of the best days brothers ever had with Brightey: when we spent the day on a private island off Puerto Rico in Mariah Carey's holiday home, then at night to have the Beach Boys fly in just to play for us... just wow. Andy was just as unfazed, yet grateful for this as he was by an empty movie theatre when I sneaked in G&Ts for us to sip in the dark.
Andy has been a high water mark spirit in my life: I can measure my own attitudes and behaviours against his and know how much I am wanting. He is a wonderful dad and grampa,and has often offered me a working example when I have gone astray.
Eleven years ago he found himself unexpectedly but definitely out of breath when climbing the terrace stairs at Villa Park. He knew something was up. There started a research campaign soon after that resulted in his eventual diagnosis with IPF - Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. This means that his immune system decided to take offence at his lungs and turn them into scar tissue over time. This has meant that by degree, every day Andy died a little, and his life got a degree harder.
But I learned another lesson from him: you never, EVER, give up. Andy did not just take ownership of his disease: researching the best doctors and treatments and how to get them arranged for him, he continued LIVING. Holiday, gigs, footie matches, gin nights, deep laughs, even when they hurt really badly. He did not stop living for a single day while he was dying.
After nine years the disease had taken such a toll that his consultant deemed the only hope he had for a better life was a double lung transplant. Andy carried the "batphone" in hope for almost two years while he continued dying a little every day. By now he needed oxygen all day and night. Could only walk a few paces. We would research restaurants with plug sockets near the tables, and cinemas with plug sockets reachable from the seats so that he could charge his oxygen concentrator while we enjoyed a meal or a movie. But Andy was getting very ill. Like a ringbearer he was becoming very spectral - fading from life.
When I took him for his regular tests in Nottingham, I liked us to stop overnight or at least go for a meal to make the journey as much about living as it was about illness, but there was no disguising the results from August - Andy was approaching the end of his journey. Our meal afterwards in Nottingham was filled with laughter and tears, but we both knew his season had changed.
I'd planned to take Andy to Scotland for a short break - he'd never been in all his life. Kind of a bucket list thing I guess. I would book it as soon as I returned from Florida on holiday...however a week into my trip I got the call that Andy's batphone had sounded, and he'd got the green light for a lung transplant !
Some poor bastard had to die to give Andy a chance of life, but WHAT a chance it was ! I was literally taking my family to a theme park while he was under the knife at home... seldom has less fun been had there ! The news from the hospital was varied on our daily calls for the next week: the lungs were working well, but he needed an oscillator vent; the numbers were stabilising, but he had not regained consciousness after a week....
As soon as I got home from the airport I visited him in ITU: machines and drains, wires and tubes everywhere - but alive. He was barely awake. He whispered "Lovely to see you bro, but I'm absolutely knackered. F*ck off and come back tomorrow will ya?" I laughed and cried, content he was doing well.
Every one of the next 27 days saw Andy improve and come back to life. A surprise visit by his grandchildren broke him into a pool of bubbles and tears, no longer ill, just convalescing from a giant surgery. We laughed, and cried and talked and planned.
Last Monday I bought him home. Yesterday we went shopping and Andy enjoyed his first pint of Bathams. It is an amazing thing: this transplant has given him an incredible second bite of the cherry of life. I can already barely remember the shadow of a man from six weeks ago.
When I feel troubled and can't sleep I often run through some of our " club" adventures in my mind and I am contented: playing pool on Ocean drive, Miami; Driving our convertible out of Orlando airport while Just Like Living In Paradise played on the radio; sipping cans of Tennants on the lakeside at Centreparcs; sharing pints and laughs with our dads, George and Jack, who were friends when alive, and surely still in heaven.
Brightey I love you man, my heart just has a piece of you in it. You have seasoned all my adult life and I am thankful to God that he put you in it. Like Samwise, I couldn't carry your burden but I have tried to carry you whenever I could. My privilege.
You are our Frodo, Brightey, with love and respect for all that means. I hope to God there's a heaven because I don't want to spend just this life with you brother. I am sure "club thirty" in White Shores will be a doozie
x
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